Drum Solo
by Duzzie
Summary: Doumeki  Because at the brink of a new day he is alone and all that he can't remember fighting for is gone.


**By Duzzie**

**Drum Solo  
**

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**i.**

He carries himself slowly, calmly, with thought and care and this must be the only, only, thing that hasn't changed because everything else certainly has.

**ii.**

He knows he's missing something. At first, he doesn't know what to do when his feet lead him to places he's never been before; an old, empty (and something in his heart aches, cries at that even though he doesn't know why), fenced-in lot, a normal bench in a normal park, a bush in full bloom. But it doesn't stop and eventually he gets used to it, but then, one day during lunch, they lead him to a girl. Not just any girl, he tells himself, Kunogi Himawari his mind whispers, and she is so familiar and unfamiliar and they are both at a loss of what to say, so they sit down with a space wide enough for another person to fit between them and their eyes always, always end up looking in the middle.

Every morning after their first meeting (and it was the first time they really met, wasn't it?) he finds that his hands grab a pair of chopsticks before leaving for school. At lunch he sits them down on the ground and stares at them as if they will answer all of his questions. Kunogi stares at them as if they could bring back the dead. They don't talk.

**iii.**

He dreams every night now. Each dream is different but in every dream a boy exists. His hair is messy, his glasses are always crooked, and every time he sees him his heart clenches painfully and his mind whispers dark little secrets that he does not understand.

Sometimes the boy is sad in his dreams, sometimes he is pathetic, sometimes he is irritated (more often than not), but once, and only once, the boy in the dream looked at him and smiled. Doumeki isn't really sure, but he thinks that that's what being in love feels like.

He wakes up every morning clutching his right eye.

**iv.**

It is only after the first dream when he realizes that his sight is definitely not what it used to be.

**v.**

On April first, four weeks, two days, six hours and one minute after their first lunch, Kunogi brings a little yellow bird. She says its name is Tanpopo and even though her very being is bad luck, neither Doumeki-kun nor Tanpopo-chan have ever been hurt. He is quiet and doesn't really know what to say, after all, he's never dealt with anything supernatural, that was his grandfather's forte.

She asks him if he ever dreams of a boy with two beautiful eyes and messy hair and crooked glasses. She doesn't wait for a response. "I dream of him very often now. He is always smiling at me (she says this part as if it were something to be amazed by) and talking and moving. But…" she pauses and looks down at her lap, a sad sort of smile on her face. "Once, he looked at me with such a kind face, Doumeki-kun. I think that's what love feels like."

He can only hum in response because the words won't make it out of his throat.

Next she tells him about the scars covering her back and that she has never been injured, but when she looks at them, all she can feel is relief.

He knows the feeling well because there have been times when he has been hit with such strong feelings of relief and exhaustion that he has tumbled over from the force of it. It feels as if he has made a sacrifice of some kind but he can't remember making any sacrifices.

**vi.**

That night he dreams of the boy and this time he can remember his name.

**vii.**

He hurries to lunch the next day and as soon as she is within his sight he half growls and half cries

"Watanuki Kimihiro,"

and is not even surprised that they say it at the same time.

**viii.**

After that, there is nothing left to say, really. No one else remembers this boy (Watanuki, Watanuki!) just as the empty lot had always been empty and nothing has ever been special about a bush or a bench.

He has checked every phone book, every library, every newspaper, every person for some sort of answer or clue and has come up with nothing. Watanuki Kimihiro does not exist (but he does, he does, he did).

Eventually, they stop meeting at lunch and soon he feels that he is the only one who cares, the only one who really, really knows. This hurts much more than it should, but by now, he is used to his aching heart.

**ix.**

Almost a year later (has it really been that long already?), Doumeki is visited by a woman who wears her invisible, broken heart on her sleeves. She has long, long hair, and cold, sad eyes, and in the back of his mind he thinks that time does not affect her. Almost immediately he wonders why he thought that.

She smiles at him (the sort of smile that you give when you have taken many things from many people and cannot do anything about it but want to anyway), addresses him as Doumeki-kun and leads him out of his shrine. She leads him to the empty lot and they step in together.

At first he is confused. He was so sure, so sure that something was going to happen, that this was what he had been searching for, but now in the lot, it is still empty… except…except for a small, lonely stone, polished and cared for. He knows what it is but is so afraid that it _**is**_. This? This is what he'd been searching for? This? No, no, he had been searching for a boy, not a grave, a _boy_.

He reaches the stone, slowly, calmly, with thought and care (because this has never changed about him) and drops to his knees when he reads the inscription.

_**Watanuki Kimihiro**_

And that's it. That is all that is there and it is enough to fill his lungs with poison and his mouth with regrets hanging just off the edges.

She leaves, having granted his wish and taking his hope as the price.

Doumeki can only stare at the grave and wish he could remember.

**x.**

Every morning he wakes and is utterly, completely alone.

"_I'll die like this, too. Alone."_


End file.
